The True Trials of the Kushinada
by SpaceVixon
Summary: After the rite of Matsuri, everything appears fine. But then one day everything goes wrong for Momiji and she finds herself without her memory? Can Kusanagi get her memory back and who's this new guy?


Disclaimer:  I do not own Blue Seed or any of its characters.  I also don't own any other anime that might pop up in my story*cough next chapter cough*.

                                                                   The True Trials of the Kushinada

                                                                                   Chapter 1

                                                                 Could things possibly get any worse?

Beep Beep Beep Beep, came the sound of the alarm through the bright morning air.  Slowly and steadily a very reluctant hand rose up and extinguished the sound.  Momiji rolled over to look at the clock.  It read 7:45.  Rolling over again, Momiji began to fall asleep when it dawned on her.  "Oh no!  I'm going to be late for school."  Without a moment to lose she hastily jumped out of bed.  She rushed over to her closet and grabbed whatever she saw first.  Without really examining it, she threw the clothes on.  In five minutes, she had successfully dressed, brushed her teeth, combed her hair, and washed her face, in record time I might add.  

Feeling confident in the way things were going she strode out of her room heading to the kitchen to pick up something she could eat on the way.  Unfortunately, in her haste she had neglected to properly tie her shoes.  She took one step down the stairs and snagged her loose shoelace.  Practically in slow motion she made a somersault down the stairs landed at the bottom on her butt.  "Ow," she thought, "That's gonna leave a mark."  She stood up trying to steady herself when she heard a familiar sound.  "Oh no!  The bus."  She quickly grabbed as much of her stuff as she could (much of her school things had been scattered when she fell) and began to attempt to catch the bus.  

She almost made it outside the door when Mr. Kunikida jumped in.  "You can't leave without having something for breakfast."  "I don't have time."  "Eh, Eh, Eh, Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.  Here take this."  He shoved some sort of a Danish into her mouth, since she had no free hand and with a half sarcastic "thank you" she ran out the door.  

Trying as best as she can to find her way with her breakfast in the way, she managed to get to the place where her bus stop was.  But it had already started moving.  In a last ditch effort, she used all her energy to catch up with the bus.  Just a few feet away from the bus her tragic flaw kicked in.  In her attempt to catch the bus she had not been paying attention to where she was going.  A curb had arisen and not noticing it, she took a normal step instead of stepping down.  Deja vous occurred and she repeated the incident from before and performed a somersault, though this one with much less grace than the one before.  She smacked down hard on the ground losing her breakfast (literally) in the fall.  Thankfully she had not dropped her books as she had before.  Only a few stray papers had escaped.  Trying to count her blessings she began to stand up so she could make her bus, but it had already long gone.  In shock by the implications this meant she just stood there staring in the direction that the bus had taken.  

"Oh man, I've already been late three times this week, Mr. Kashino said if I was late again that I would have detention."  "You know princess, you really shouldn't talk to yourself."  Startled by this unexpected presence, Momiji jumped, this time losing the books that she just a few seconds ago had avoided losing.  "Kusanagi!"  "I guess I should start calling you Butterfingers instead of princess or maybe the absent minded princess.  Man Momiji, did you dress in the dark or what?"  "You know it's your fault I dropped those books so you can just keep those names to…  Dressed in the dark?"  

Finally catching Kusanagi's last words, Momiji drifted her eyes down to examine her attire.  'Kusanagi was right.  What happened?'  She asked herself blushing at the thought that she had gone out in public like that.  She had grabbed her usual uniform including the skirt, but somehow she had put them on wrong.  She was in such a hurry this morning that she just threw them on.  Her shirt, to start with, was inside out.  She had attempted to button it but had missed a few on the way causing her shirt to stick out in every direction.  Her skirt was in better condition than her shirt, but not much.  It was on basically normal, except that one of the ends was tucked in with most of her shirt.  Then finally, her shoes did match, but her socks were the worst socks she'd ever seen plus they didn't match: one was white with yellow fish "swimming" around; the other was red with white stars spaced sporadically.  

'I can't go to school like this' she thought taking another look at herself.  She gradually rolled her eyes up having the feeling like someone was staring at her and of course she forgot that Kusanagi was still there sporting one of his usual one eyebrow (or two) up look.  'Oh my god!  I can't believe he saw me looking like this!' she thought.  Even though the Aragami had been vanquished, everything wasn't perfect.  She still had strong feelings for Kusanagi, but somehow nothing had come of it.  None-the-less, she still felt uncomfortable around him.  Trying to look less like an idiot she tried to hide her attire by ducking behind a small tree, hoping to find a way to fix her outfit.  Still staring at Kusanagi she began to attempt to fix her clothes behind the tree.  

At first, Kusanagi didn't notice this; he was too distracted looking for something.  He did like to pop up around Momiji and startle her, but this time there had actually been a reason he had popped up.  He had been feeling this weird presence lately.  That morning he had felt it again and being wary of this continual presence, he decided to follow it.  And surprisingly it led him to Momiji.  Actually, when he had gotten closer to Momiji the presence had increased in intensity, but when he got next to her the presence had ceased.  He kept looking around trying to find it again.  'Ah there it is' he thought and began to retreat.  Before leaving he turned his attention back towards Momiji.  She was still grappling with her attire, failing miserably.  "Geeze, Momiji, you really got to get a handle on yourself.  People will start staring.  I get stared at enough without that added bonus."  "Kusanagi!  I have a handle on myself."  When she made her statement she stepped forward tumbling again on the cold concrete.  She looked up and Kusanagi was gone.  'I hope he didn't see that' she thought, her face changing into three different shades of red separately.  Not wanting to make anymore of an embarrassment, she quickly grabbed her things and headed to school. 

~*~*~

Mr. Kunikida paced the floor of the living room making slight remarks under his breath.  There was a TAC meeting being held at the house.  Usually they'd have the meetings at the headquarters, but since the Aragami were "sleeping", they weren't really needed at the TAC.  They still had employment there, but now they only did minor things, not needing to spend the extra hours there at night.  Plus, this was more of a social visit anyway since most of them couldn't come.  Ryoko was there sitting on the couch.  Kome and Yagashi were coming but going to be late since they were picking up the food.  Sakura wasn't coming.  She still helped out, but she was sort of pre-occupied by her new start as a pop-idol.  Matsudara was also unable to come, since she was going to spend some time with her son Jun.  Kunikida had also invited Kusanagi, even though he doubted he would come.  But he had hoped he would come.  There had been some reports about some "animal" attacks.  He wanted to ask Kusanagi about them before worrying the rest of them, especially Momiji.  She had gone through so much and deserved some time to rest, at least for a while.  

Actually, she was the root of his problems at the moment.  She was supposed to come straight home after school.  But now it was 6:25, over two hours late to come home.  He hoped for the best, but he couldn't help having this feeling that something bad was going to happen, or already happened.  He was hoping beyond hope that Kusanagi would decide to show up so if nothing else, he could go look for Momiji.  And speak of the devil.  A split second later Kusanagi was standing in the room with his hands in his pockets, barely interested in his surroundings.  Kusanagi scanned the room trying to determine who all was going to be at this impromptu meeting.  To his surprise he only saw one person, Ryoko.  He really hadn't expected the whole crew to be there since nothing major had been going on.  He was actually surprised that he was there, wondering at that moment exactly why he had decided to come.  But almost as quickly as the thought came it left as he remembered why.  

It was that presence that he had kept on feeling.  After leaving Momiji, he followed it for many blocks, but then it had just disappeared, like it just vanished into thin air.  He wanted to alert Kunikida to his find, wondering if there had been any other things out of the ordinary.  He glimpsed Kunikida and was about to walk over to him, when a strange thought occurred to him.  'Why aren't there more people here?'  Like I said before, he didn't think everyone was going to come, but there should be more people than that.  'Why would they want me…?'  Then it dawned on him.  He didn't know why he didn't think about it earlier.  They, all of the TAC, had been acting very strange when both Momiji and he were around.  At first, he thought it was just them, being pretty weird as they were, but gradually he realized that they were eager for Momiji and him to be together almost like they were encouraging more of a relationship between the two.  He had to admit though, that he had thought of Momiji, many times, struggling very hard to control himself.  But he ultimately decided against any closer involvement.  It wasn't so much due to him as it was due to her.  He knew she didn't feel the same way as him or she would do something when those googly eyes (of the TAC) were on them.  He also knew that she would never have those feelings.  How could she?  He was an abomination, neither human nor Arigami. 'How could anyone love him?'  Putting his own feelings aside he decided that this "meeting" actually was some ploy to "hook" him up with Momiji.  He wished that people would just mind their own business.  That subject was between him and Momiji…

"Where's Momiji?" he asked voicing his thought.  "We don't know, she hasn't come home yet and hasn't called or anything.  We were hoping that you could go search for her."  Getting a little angry, Kusanagi closed his eyes and put two fingers to his head in an attempt to calm down.   'Stupid TAC.  Can't leave them alone for one second to watch over Momiji,' he thought as he headed back towards the kitchen to leave out the open window, the same way he came in, but right when he got to the frame of the door to the kitchen he heard an "oof" from outside the front door.  Looking around to his fellow comrades to get an answer he finally decided to go to the source to solve it.  He flung open the front door entirely expecting some monster to attack, believing that Momiji was in danger…  And found a very disheveled looking Momiji.  

She was drenched from the head down in both mud and water even though it was clearly not raining at the moment.  He found her still lying on the ground sitting on her butt with her legs sticking out on both her left and right sides.  Her uniform, that now was on properly, was covered in brown splotches placed sporadically on her uniform.  Her skirt too, was smudged, but there also was a slight tear starting from the bottom ending just a few inches from the top.  And to top it all off, she was missing one of her shoes sporting a very dirty brown (once was yellow and white) sock in its place.  Noticing the light from inside she gazed up at the tall dark shadow looming over her.  "Who's there," she asked a little wary while a drop of dirt water dripped down her face from her hair part all the way down to her chin leaving behind a little trail of dirt as it fell.  Speechless at Momiji's condition, Kusanagi just stood there in complete shock trying to let the images he saw reach his brain.  He quickly snapped back as he saw her struggle to get up attempting to gather her school belongings that she had let fall once again.  After retrieving one article, she twisted around to get the next and flinched in pain.  At this Kusanagi rushed over and scooped her up before she had another chance of hurting herself.  A little startled, Momiji jumped at the sudden touch to her skin.  After a second to collect herself she glanced up at the barer of the strong arms that were currently containing her.  To her surprise she saw Kusanagi.  "Kusanagi, what are you doing here?" she asked just as Kunikida and Ryoko rushed up.

~*~*~

A few minutes later, Momiji was sitting on the couch with a blanket around her and a cup of hot tea in her hands.  She couldn't help but feel nervous as every eye was on her with a worried look replacing their normal happiness, or even plainness, such was the case with Kusanagi.  Very little had transpired in the minutes that had past.  None of them knew what had happened.  Not able to control himself anymore, Kunikida leapt up being the first to talk.  "Where have you been, Momiji, we've all been worried sick about you.  What happened?  You've almost given me a heart attack from worry."  Feeling a little sheepish, Momiji couldn't help but move her eyes towards her feet.  She had had a hard enough day as it was without having the third degree placed on her when she got home.  "Oh, it's nothing," began Momiji, "I just had some, er, minor disturbances."  "What kind?" Kunikida asked. 

 "Oh, well to start with the main reason I was late was because of Detention," at this Kunikida's eye twitched, but she hurried on trying to ignore him, "I got it for being late," this was the truth, but she had also gotten it due to a poor grade she had received on a test, her teacher believing this would be a perfect opportunity for extra time to work on learning her math.  "Well, I went there, nothing eventful happened, and then I was released.  Unfortunately due to the Detention I was way past time to ride my bus so I decided to go buy a regular bus ticket to get home.  But to my misfortune the last bus headed by my house had left 5 minutes before.  So I was forced to improvise and decided to just walk home being that it was the only sure route home.  I was making record time until someone with his or her Brights on flashed by blurring my vision.  In this wake, I happened to get my foot stuck in a sewer grate thing.  I tried desperately to get my foot unstuck, but to no avail.  With one last attempt I tried with all my might to get loose.  And with luck I pulled apart from the grate, but due to the force of my pull I sort of lost my balance and toppled into the puddle of water that lay next to it.  Well, trying to count my blessings, I got up and tried to grab my shoe since it came off when I had separated from the grate, but unfortunately it had fallen all the way down into the sewer.  A little tousled I walked the rest of the way home with only one shoe without anything happening, until I tripped and fell here at the doorstep.  I'm sorry I didn't call or anything.  I was just too distracted by my misfortune.  But all in all I'm fine.  I'll just go upstairs and get cleaned up and then I'll join you down here for the meeting."  

She began to get up and start walking when a sharp pain surged through her leg.  Ignoring it she continued on, but was stopped forced back on the couch by two strong arms.  "Don't get up," came the voice of her protector, "Despite your optimism you appear hurt."  He crouched down and examined her leg.  He picked her right leg up and began to gently rotate her foot.  "Ah!" came the response to this exam.  "You've sprained your ankle.  You're not going anywhere Princess."  "Oh, it's ok, I'm fine," began Momiji again attempting to get up.  But just as she began she was again forced down on the couch.  He stared at her determinedly, attempting to intimidate her.  But then, his eyes relaxed expressing a sign of worry.  As he stared down at her he noticed that she was shaking.  Even though it hadn't been raining, she had gotten extremely wet, and then had to walk all the way home in the cold dark air.  It wasn't too cold outside, but it was winter not being a wise time to walk outside wet.  Not wanting anymore harm to come to her he relaxed and came to a conclusion.  "If you are so determined to go upstairs to wash up, then I'll just have to carry you."  

Before Momiji could argue he had her lifted up in his arms and was heading towards her room.  He slowly went up the stairs being careful not to jostle and hurt her.  He couldn't help but feel a little nervous.  The skin of her arm, a little cold, skimmed across his neck in an attempt to get control over the situation.  Feeling her that close to him started his heart to beat faster.  He wanted more than anything to just keep her tight, but he knew it couldn't last as he approached her room.  He flung her door open with his legs and proceeded in taking her over to her bed and gently laying her down there. "Get dressed, or whatever you need to do, but be quick.  Don't try any funny business.  I'll be waiting outside the door."  With that, he went back out the door and closed it.  

Now that she was alone, Momiji collapsed upon the bed, losing any composure she had once had.  This could possibly be the worst day of her life, even worse than that first day she met Kusanagi…  Shaking that thought away she worked her way to the shower to get cleaned up.  After a harsh day like that, she would have preferred taking a bath, but with her over protective protector, she thought it would be best to keep it as quick as possible.  She began to shed her clothes when out of the corner of her eye the mirror caught her.  She walked over not believing what she saw.  'No wonder they were over protective,' she thought,' it looked as if she'd been caught in a twister, or something'.  Practically disgusted with herself she continued onto the shower…  15 minutes later she emerged out of her bathroom sporting only a bathrobe, slippers, and a towel atop her head.  She was amazed at how well she felt, but she was glad to have the stress of her day washed away with all the other dirt.  She strolled along to her closet to pick out an outfit to wear (she was already wearing her undergarments) thoroughly exited about the promising festivities that would occur downstairs once Kome got there.  She slowly opened her closet and was about to begin searching, but her search was cut short…  Momiji's legs grew weak as she felt a presence behind her.  Without realizing it she had uttered one word.  "Aragami…" Momiji trailed off as she twirled around to reassure her eyes of what her body felt.   
  

A/N:  Sorry this is so boring.  I promise that the next chapter will be a lot better.  Also, sorry for leaving you all with a nasty cliffhanger.  The story finally has some promise when I stop writing.  Hopefully I'll get the next chapter up tonight, if not I'll try to update as soon as I can.  Plus review please.  The more reviews the more encouraged I am to update and update soon.  Constructive criticism allowed, but please no flames.  Thanx SpcVxn.


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